ON THIS DAY
IT’S DAY 162 OF 2016
THERE are 162,000 people in the UK with the surname Patel — including Priti Patel, the Employment Minister and Brexit campaigner — compared to more than 500,000 Smiths. BUDDHIST monk Julian Glew, 45, slashed 162 tyres earlier this year in Pocklington, Humberside. Glew, apparently became agitated and spurred to his actions after inadvertently squashing an insect. He was jailed for 11 weeks following the rampage. THE blockbuster 3D film Avatar runs at 162 minutes. It took $2.8 billion at the box office, making it the highest ever grossing movie — though some claim the accolade should really go to Gone With The Wind, which would have made $3.4billion when ticket sales are adjusted for inflation.
THERE ARE 204 DAYS LEFT
ALTHOUGH a chessboard looks as though it contains only 64 squares — this only counts the indidivual black-and-white tiles. It is possible to make a total of 204 squares, if you count the board itself, which is square, and squares you can make out of groups of tiles. IT’S 204 years (1812) since the last Prime Minister of the UK was assassinated while in office. Spencer Perceval (right) was killed by a disgruntled merchant who had been seeking compensation from the government for being imprisoned in Russia.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
PRINCE PHILIP, 95. Husband of Queen Elizabeth II and longest-serving consort to a reigning monarch. He was born on a kitchen table on the Greek island of Corfu. In December 1922, following unrest after Greece’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish War, Philip’s family was exiled, and fled the country aboard HMS Calypso. The royal baby was carried aboard in a cot made from a fruit box. ELIZABETH HURLEY, 51. The Basingstoke-born actress and model who has recently starred alongside Joan Collins in TV series The Royals. Mother-of-one Hurley is godmother to Patsy Kensit and Liam Gallagher’s son Lennon and two of David and Victoria Beckham’s sons — Brooklyn and Romeo.
BORN ON THIS DAY
LIONEL JEFFRIES (1926-2010). The London-born actor and director who played Grandad Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang — although he played Dick Van Dyke’s father, he was actually six months younger in real life. JUDY GARLAND (1922-69). The fivetimes married American singer and actress, who, at 16, found global fame as Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz. A reward of $1 million has been offered for any information that leads to the return of one of the pairs of famous ruby slippers (above) that she wore in the film that were stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Michigan in 2005.
ON JUNE 10th . . .
In 1829, Oxford University won the first Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. In 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded by William G. Wilson — a stockbroker — and Dr Robert Smith — a surgeon — in Akron, Ohio. Both were alcoholics and June 10, 1935 was the date of Smith’s last drink. In 1977, James Earl Ray, the assassin of Martin Luther King, escaped from Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, Tennessee. He was recaptured three days later and a year was added to his 99-year sentence.
QUOTE FOR TODAY
No city should be too large for a man to walk out of it in a morning.
Writer Cyril Connolly (1903-74)
JOKE OF THE DAY
WHAT do you call a dinosaur with just one eye? A Doyouthinkhesaurus.